TODAY'S PEOPLE

* Year of the dag: These days the best way to score a major record deal is to appear in an Australian soapie.

Following in the footprints of Kylie, Jase, Dannii and Craig, Greg Benson and Craig Thomson (Matt and Martin respectively in Home and Away) have been over to the UK shopping around for a record deal.

The Seven soapie has an audience of around 17 million in Britain.

Benson, the hunkier of the two Summer Bay boys, hawked a demo tape featuring himself and girlfriend Amanda Newman-Phillips, and was quietly confident of signing on the dotted line.

But it was Thomson, who plays a big dag in the show, who appears to have been given the nod.

Both the Virgin and CBS labels are interested and Thomson is recording his demo on Sunday.

ART FOR ART'S SAKE

* In today's exciting instalment ... : The NSW Art Gallery walls were awash with watercolours, but much attention at yesterday's previews of the Donald Friend exhibition centred on his illuminated manuscripts and diaries.

Produced over the last two decades of his life, the artist's erotic illustrations and graphic text titillated many an art-lover. However, some lamented the fact that they could not read on because the volumes were under glass.

Little of it would make suitable reading in a family newspaper but a gallery spokeswoman says readers so inclined can follow Friend's sexual adventures daily.

Staff will turn the pages each morning; members of the public can inquire at the administration reception desk for a $20 season pass.

WEDDING BELLES

* Anyone for Venice?: An invitation that fell off the back of a passing 747 invites the lucky recipient to the silvertail wedding of the year, between Lady Potter's daughter Primrose Dunlop and (it's an extra wide invitation)Lorenzo Robert Maximillian Giustiniani-Montesini, the Prince Giustiniani, arguably the only Qantas tea trolley-pusher with a title.

We couldn't help but notice that the happy event is to take place in Venice on April 16, yet there appears to be no mention of group travel concessions to and from the Basilica Di San Pedro.

And we wonder how they are going to tie all the empty Foster's cans to the back of the gondola as the couple are punted off into the sunset?

WEIRD WORLD OF SPORTS I

* Interschool mud wrestling?: We have just been informed by fax that 60s soccer superstars George Best (pictured) and Denis Law will be visiting Canterbury Girls' High at lunchtime today to coach the school's promising soccer team.

Scribbled on the front of this information, sent to us by the sponsors of the the Best and Law Show, Camperdown Travelodge, was the following addendum:

"And just in case you have a vision of the wild man from Northern Ireland(George Best, we assume) romping in the mud with eleven 16-year-olds, he is being accompanied by his girlfriend, to whom he is most dearly attached."

CELLULOID CAPERS

* Okay, Tammy, on the count of three, cry: Work has just begun on Fall from Grace, the NBC telemovie depicting the decline and fall of Jimmy and Tammy Bakker's PTL (Praise The Lord) ministry.

Actor Kevin Spacey portrays defrocked evangelist Jim Bakker (pictured), while Bernadette Peters, wearing 10cm of mascara, plays his tear-stained wife, Tammy Faye.

The movie will be shown in the US some time in May. Bakker will be able to enjoy it from a cosy room in a federal prison in Minnesota, where he is serving a 45-year sentence.

The idea for the telemovie came from the Bakkers. NBC won't say how much was paid to the couple for the rights.

TODAY'S MANGLISH

* Mangle-free zone: Weird world of sportster Ken Sutcliffe sportingly confessed that his Manglish Award, handed out by reader Glenn Davis, should properly go to diver Craig Rogerson, whom he was interviewing at the time.

It was Rogerson who said: "It's a long way up but it's an even longer way down."

It appears Sutcliffe has escaped the Commonwealth Games telecast with a mangle-free record, although we demand a steroids test before presenting him with a Today's People Anti-Manglish Medal.

Who will receive the Gold | Gold | Gold | Commonwealth Sportsmanglish Award?

All will be revealed on Monday.